Plus, Paul “Enron Advisor” Krugman proves, once more, that he’s a blathering idiot with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Unless providing people with an IQ above that of boiled leeks with an endless source of hysterical laughter counts which, we suppose, it might.

Actually, we’re not entirely fair here. When he claims that Glowbull Wormening caused rising food prices (and therefore directly caused the Egyptian Clusterfuck also known as “Iran, the Sequel”), he’s actually half right. But not in the way that he thinks he is.

So what’s behind the price spike?

…

But the evidence tells a different, much more ominous story. While several factors have contributed to soaring food prices, what really stands out is the extent to which severe weather events have disrupted agricultural production. And these severe weather events are exactly the kind of thing we’d expect to see as rising concentrations of greenhouse gases change our climate — which means that the current food price surge may be just the beginning.

Because, as every follower of the Cult of the Hockey Stick knows, we never had severe weather events in the past, which is why food prices have been rock solid since the days of the woolly mammoth.

Until we started driving SUVs, that is.

Do adverse weather events have an influence on prices? Of course they do. Among other things. They cause increased scarcity, and increased scarcity causes price increases. That’s basic. That the Moonfaced Marmoset Krugman is able to grasp it should tell you just what level of “basic” we’re talking here.

Are they caused by Glowbull Wormening? Everything is, haven’t you heard? Right down to your coffee-maker taking too long to get done in the morning. OK, we’ll dispense with the claims of imbeciles and stick with sentient lifeforms. The jury is out for lack of conclusive evidence.

So where is the dumbest “expert” at the New York Retirement Home for Talentless, Under-endowed-in-the-cerebral-department Twats “half right”, we hear you ask?

In his claim that Glowbull Wormening, or more accurately, the ignorant cult of Glowbull Wormening is to blame for it, that’s where.

That Neo-Luddite assembly of Lack-witted Lamebrains and the even dumber politicians on both sides of the aisle can count among their accomplishments such “successes” as:

1) Ethanol fuels which, in an effort to “counter” an unconfirmed “threat” with methods that have not yet been proven to have an effect (other than to give Cornpone Gingrich an opportunity to suck Iowan Voter Cock, which made his boyfriend Blarney Fwank insanely jealous, we might add), have cut the supply of food down significantly. While consuming vast amounts of fossil fuels in order to produce an inefficient, over-priced “alternative fuel” that, as a bonus, will destroy your car’s engine as well.

But the farmers get a lot of your money in subsidies to produce this wasteful, useless product and they get their longing bungholes impaled on a regular basis by DC politicians, which is a welcome change from their normal, bland diet of “animal husbandry”, so it’s all good. All the while NOT saving a single drop or ounce of fossil fuels, which was the whole, bird-brained idea to begin with.

But the actual issue here vis-a-vis food prices is that while they’re wasting valuable farmland to please their sugar daddies in DC, food is not being produced on those acres. Which leads to increased scarcity, which leads to… You’re smart, you can take it from here. It has to do with prices on the goods they’re not producing anymore. That last bit was for the benefit of Cluck-cluck-man of the NYT. We hate to see numbskulls suffer. Well no. We don’t. But we’re trying to work with the New Civility™ here.

The thing is, while Newt Gingrich is poking the prostates of love-sick, lonely Iowan farmers, the rest of the world is taking it up the Khyber Pass as well.

All thanks to the Cult of Glowbull Wormening.

2) Energy production. Like it or not, producing stuff takes energy and that energy has to come from somewhere. But, thanks to the Cult of Glowbull Wormening, any attempts to actually make any energy in a viable, cost-efficient manner that doesn’t involve spending trillions of your tax dollars on hunting unicorns and trying to tickle coulombs out of their keisters are being blocked because it might produce plant food which, according to the Algore and his Amateur Academicians™, is suddenly the single most scary threat to The World As We Know It™.

Trees and other plants couldn’t be reached for comment because they had other, more intellectual pursuits taking up their time.

Coal isn’t dug at a time when the weather demonstrably caused a shortage due to the catastrophic events in Australia, oil can’t be drilled for because the Ogabe Regime won’t respect the Law of the Land and nuclear energy which, by the way, doesn’t produce scary plant food, is RIGHT out because, well, it’s icky. Because, Jane Fonda. China Syndrome!

It’s not the first time national security and policy has been determined by celluloid clusterfucks whose only encounter with academia was when they were fired from janitorial positions at their local community college for refusing to stop drinking from the urinals. See: Brockovich, Erin, or “how a cunt so dumb she couldn’t land a job as a pole dancer because the intelligence of the pole intimidated her became a millionaire and celebrity.” But it is one of the classics.

You’re pretty low on the ladder of intellectual evolution when you, as a nation, are behind the french.

All of this and more of course leads to increased scarcity of energy which, in turn, are you still with us, Cluckman?, leads to increased prices of said energy. Which, given that energy is needed to both produce and transport foodstuffs, leads to…

Would somebody please go kick that moron Cluckface in the nuts because our Imperial Foot is getting tired?

All thanks to the Cult of Glowball Wormening™.

So, you see, Cluckman was half right.

Now, if you could get liberals to see how he was right, but your chances of successfully breeding fruit flies until they’re intelligent enough to launch a Mars Mission are much higher, so you might want to spend your efforts elsewhere.

Thatisall.

UPDATE:LC Erbo points out the influence of The Ben Bernank, quite possibly the single most retarded Chairman of the Federal Reserve in our nation’s history (and in a field that includes Greenspan, that’s quite an accomplishment), and another leftover of the glory days of the “pragmatist conservatives” that brought us the electoral and financial successes of 2000-2006.

Run Jeb, run! Or Mitt Romney. If for nothing else then because Allahpundit will be too busy whacking his pud to annoy us with his stupidity. Get a fucking room already!

13 comments

To Krugman’s statements, we can say, in the words of the immortal Colonel Sherman T. Potter, “Horse hockey.”

What’s causing the rise in food prices is the rise in commodity prices, sparked by The Ben Bernank and his “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Debt Monetization” (which it totally is) Quantitative Easing schemes. Look at the charts that Karl Denninger has posted. Cotton, wheat, sugar, corn…all have experienced huge ramps over the past year, with more dollars chasing the same amount of commodities (even before figuring in adverse weather effects and such). And we can add oil to that list, too.

So, when the prices of the stuff that goes into food comes up, the price of the food that appears on the grocery store shelves also goes up…that is, unless having all the major food processing companies lose tons of money and go out of business strikes you as a better idea.

But hey, math is hard, let’s go shopping!

Not that the Watermelons’ focus on ethanol production, and discouraging absolutely any means of energy production that is known to actually work, can be discounted. But I do think that the blame for food price hikes needs to go first and foremost to The Ben Bernank.

Response to Erbo @ #1:
The Federal Reserve Corp. is the worst thing to happen to this country, ever. The Federal Reserve Act
of 1913 must be repealed, and the Federal Reserve broken up. The incestuous relationship between the
Fed, and the Government is a huge con game that would be prosecutable under the RICO act, were it
done by any other business entity. Now if you will excuse me, I need to go trowel shit on Woodrow Wilson’s
headstone.

DJ,
While you and LC Erbo are right about the speculation factor, the Imperator’s statement about massive amounts of food and fuel being used for ethanol production is also correct. He (and to be fair, most everyone does this) leaves out the water that is also used in ethanol production. Early plants needed as much as three gallons of water to produce a gallon of ethanol. Some of this could not be recovered. Newer processes are reputed to have cut this by at least half, but the aquifers are still being drained.
BTW, I thought the correct term was “blithering idiot.”

Forgot to mention this. The huge increases in commodity prices are also causing more and more farmers to put marginal land, which had formerly been in CRP (Conservation Reserve Program) acreage, back into production.
As this is marginal, it requires greater inputs (water, fertilizer, and pesticides) to make a crop. It also leads to higher erosion.

This is truly classic Leftist tactics at work. Create a problem with energy production and blame it on the Right, then offer increased government involvement as the solution to the evil greenhouse gasses of doom.

#1: Why have we become so anti-nuclear. Yes it requires a certain amount of responsibility and intelligence (see Chernobyl), but damnit, the technology works.

#2: Why is it that environmentalists and NIMBYs get to shoot down the construction of new power plants, refineries and other energy production facilities? I can’t remember the exact circumstances, but there was some refinery they wanted to build in Arizona, I believe… out in the middle of the fucking desert, far away from any people, and it still got shot down because of some species of tortoise possibly being harmed by the trucks going in and out of the facility. Worse, in California the Governator had gotten behind the expansion of a massive solar power facility out in the Mojave, supposedly the very kind of energy the Left wants us to use, and THAT got shot down by Left, too. What are we supposed to do, go back to wooden water wheels?

#3: We have massive deposits of oil shale in the midwest, the largest in the world. It’s questionable if, at current price levels, it would be economical to spend the extra effort required to refine oil shale into usable fuel (as opposed to crude oil which is much easier to refine), but you just KNOW some Leftist would try to impose a ban on the endeavor if they did.

#4: The Fed is a crock. But then the whole monetary system is a complete clusterfuck. It’s difficult for any one person to really get a handle on the trail of money. I worked for a stock brokerage firm for awhile, one which is now gone (I won’t mention which for a variety of reasons), but I do know that the regulation of the markets had become ridiculously stupid. Perfectly decent, legit financial guys were getting hassled and fined by the SEC for, essentially, minor clerical errors in advertisements while blatant cheats and liars were getting away with it almost directly in the public eye. It’s not just the Fed. It’s the Fed, the SEC, Freddie & Fannie, the bailouts and a myriad of other things. The whole damn system is run by crooks, for crooks. But in the words of Barney Frank, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it, right?

[T]he Imperator’s statement about massive amounts of food and fuel being used for ethanol production is also correct. He (and to be fair, most everyone does this) leaves out the water that is also used in ethanol production. Early plants needed as much as three gallons of water to produce a gallon of ethanol. Some of this could not be recovered. Newer processes are reputed to have cut this by at least half, but the aquifers are still being drained.

Never said that wasn’t an issue; in fact, I said “Not that the Watermelons’ focus on ethanol production […] can be discounted.” The consumption of so much water to make what is, ultimately, a piss-poor variety of fuel just makes the issue worse.

Ethanol doesn’t have nearly the energy density of hydrocarbon fuels, and can’t be used in the existing “physical plant” of vehicles and other hydrocarbon-burners as-is (it farks them up something awful). Like it or not, there’s nothing like hydrocarbon fuel for providing efficient energy in applications that have to be mobile and need to be reasonably safe for their operators to use and refuel. (Batteries don’t have a good enough energy density either. Not to mention that they have a variety of other disadvantages, like being heavy, expensive to replace, and full of chemicals way more hazardous than gasoline.)

But every chemical reaction can be reversed, given enough energy to do so…and we could actually make all the hydrocarbon fuel we’d ever need, in quantity and economically, given a good source of cheap energy to do so. Like nukes. Lots of nukes. (We’d also need feed stock to convert into fuel, like raw biomass of one sort or another. And there’d be a number of issues for the engineers to solve before production could go full-blast.) But we’re not going to do it with wind turbines and photovoltaic cells…which seem to be the only energy sources the Watermelons approve of, even grudgingly.

Jerry Pournelle has said that the two things that we need for economic prosperity are freedom and cheap energy.

Under Hussein al-Chicago and his Watermelon buddies, we will get neither.

burn your food then wonder why prices are high.cause oil prices to rise because of govt. regulation then wonder why fertilizer prices are high or fuel prices are high.you do remember bongo saying he would cause fuel prices to sky rocket and you voted for him dj.you voted for a commie traitor who comes from a long line of commies like his whacked out mother,grand mother,grandfather, various fathers and mentors.bongo belongs in an orange jump suit with a black bag over his head waiting for that long drop.

*perking up from snooze* did someone say Nuclear Power, the same industry that provided me a comfortable living for most of my adult life? Also, part of the most Brilliant Idea Evah™ to come out of DC, that would save consumer skadrillions of bucks on power. Yes…that wonderful industry deregulation that forced owners of their perfectly profitable (and reliable) businesses (producing juice) to put their plants up for auction to the highest bidder. In reality many owners saw the handwriting on the wall and decided NOT to bid on their own property. The winners, allegedly would lower rates to the public. Not surprisingly, many, many production facilities were bought out by corporate raiders, that laid-off experienced staff, cut corners on administration and maintenance and of course, sought higher electricity rates to pay for their recent purchase. The nationwide net result of this liberal policy was increases of about 15% nationwide for power. Isn’t it brilliant how the left can save us all from corporate greed with their hair-brained ideas?

If we were serious about nuclear power, we would move forward with systems like the Westinghouse AP1000 generation III designs.

Response to Erbo @:
It seems to me that someone posted (possibly here) about a bacteria, or catalyst, or enzyme, or something that would actually convert raw biomass-any biomass including what we now put into landfills, into a feedstock that could be used by existing refineries. Anyone remember it?

You are correct, but Paul Cluckface is one of the few unfortunates who manages to be both blathering and blithering at the same time, one of his very few actual accomplishments in life, and far be it from his Even-Handed Imperial Majesty to fail to acknowledge that.